


All that's left of me is him

by Nerd_alert19



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, F/M, Season/Series 06, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 20:49:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20070379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerd_alert19/pseuds/Nerd_alert19
Summary: Just a introspective piece from Sarge's point of view as he discovers the man who has his face. Contains spoilers from season six up to tomorrow nights finale.





	All that's left of me is him

He’d been attracted to her since he saw her, but there was a lot to be attracted to. She was very beautiful and held herself with a kind of confidence that made her stand out despite her diminutive size. She seemed tiny….

But then he saw her fight. She was some form of warrior goddess, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t turned on watching her move with such grace and precision. She was a weapon in herself, and he was impressed with how formidable an opponent she turned out to be.

There was something not quite right though. There was a look in her eyes that made him hesitate when he saw her standing in the middle of his truck.

It felt familiar.

He expected her to roll her eyes at his hesitation, but then he couldn’t figure out why he expected that.

He didn’t know her.

But he wanted to. He couldn’t shake that. Snowflake sent her back through the open portal and she was gone, but somehow she lingered in the truck with him.

He tried to sleep after he relocated the truck, but every time he closed his eyes he saw her. It just wasn’t the same version of the woman on his truck.

He saw her in the pilot seat of a plane flipping switches above her head with a force born from frustration.

He saw her younger and full of life and energy teasing him about his lack of skills and need for sunglasses.

He saw her swinging a long staff with such strength and fluidity, but while her movements were calm and graceful her eyes were full of anguish.

He saw her sitting on a bench with bruises on her face and a worried expression marring her features. She seemed scared yet determined, and then something he said made her smile and it was everything.

He woke up disoriented and confused. He wasn’t sure why he felt so drawn to this woman, but he needed her.

He needed to recruit her for his team.

He couldn’t fight the need to make her understand the situation, to understand him.

  
She was angry.

She looked at him with so much rage that he couldn’t reconcile it with the way she looked at him in his dreams. There was tenderness and understanding in her eyes when he closed his. Now he just sees hate.

She had passed his test, but he knew he would have wanted her to stay even if she had managed to find a way out without killing the shrike.

She didn’t want to talk about the man who shared his face. He had to drag the information out of her with callous words and jest.

He didn’t care about the other man, he just wanted to figure her out. He didn’t need to know why the other man looked like him, or who he was. Then she talked about how well she knew that man, his past, his family, and all the details that could only be born from years of intimacy and trust. Suddenly he didn’t just care about that man, he desperately wanted to be him.

She attacked him in the cab of his truck. He wasn’t expecting the thrill that came from it. He was used to the adrenaline rush that came with a good fight, but this was different. This felt like foreplay.

  
The images came in flashes like they did when he slept. These were different. He was still fighting with her, but instead of being in the truck they were on padded mats and she was smiling. The last thought he had before she knocked him out cold was that it felt like the old days.

He was glad to be on their base. He and his team had a contingency plan in place, and it was just a matter of time before they slipped up. These people were too confident.

He tried to get a reaction out of her by calling out her affection for the other guy in front of her colleagues. She wasn’t embarrassed; she was annoyed, but he could work with that. He was momentarily distracted by the young girl fleeing from the room and caught the look on Agent May’s face as she watched her go. It was maternal.

Interesting.

He couldn’t shake the momentary heaviness that settled over him as he heard her voice radio in from the plane. He knew what would happen if those shrike were allowed to fully crystalize. None of them would survive. SHE wouldn’t survive. He kept telling himself that no one mattered more than the mission, but he felt his stomach clench as he waited for the Director to cave in to his demands. He gave his suggestion and held his breath as he waited for them to gain altitude. He found himself praying for her to make it, but instead of being confused by the compulsion to do it, he felt the familiarity of begging for her survival dozens of times before.

He didn’t want her to go with him as part of his new team, and he suddenly didn’t want the young girl to go either. He had an odd feeling when he was around her, as if he was missing some key fact about her. He knew his fail safe plan and didn’t want them anywhere near his truck, but he couldn’t very well announce that he had a hidden nuke on his truck. Instead he begrudgingly accepted the contingency and began formulating a way to get them all out.

It wasn’t working and they weren’t willing to go along with his plan. They didn’t understand that sacrifices had to be made to save their planet. He had to make the sacrifice. He had to sacrifice them. It should have been easy to walk away from two people he barely knew. He had lost the love of his life and his family, he was no stranger to loss and pain.

This felt different.

This felt worse.

He tried desperately to pull up memories and images of the ones Izel took from him, but instead he saw her in a silver dress pressed against him as they moved across a crowded room. He shook his head and tried again. This time he saw the girl sitting on the floor of the plane sobbing and broken. She’d lost someone too.

He forged ahead and made it onto the plane. The plan was in place, but something went wrong. There was no explosion. There was no ending. They pursued Izel, but the Director and the fast girl had a plan of their own.

He begged them to let him go with them to take out Izel. He needed to be the one to complete this journey. They didn’t know what she was capable of, and he couldn’t afford for them to fail.

He needed this all to be over now.

He waited in the cell hours later. They were all out there celebrating. They had no idea that this was just the beginning.

There was a jolt of pleasure that coursed through him when the cell door opened and he saw her. He’d been hoping for a chance to be alone with her again, but wasn’t sure why. He knew she must hate him even more now that he had left them all to die in the truck. She looked angry, but as she got closer he realized it wasn’t anger in her eyes; it was indifference. It was as if she was in the room with him, but not actually there at all. He didn’t have the time to give it any more consideration as he saw her gun come out and then the flash of the barrel.

He looked up as he slid down the wall and realized that those eyes weren’t hers, and then the gun rang out again and everything faded to black.

He woke up and felt different. He felt more aware, and the place felt more familiar. He shut out those thoughts and focused on escaping and completing the mission. He didn’t want to hurt the girl, but once he could take out Izel they would all be safe again.

He didn’t believe what she was saying. His mind flashed to images that were much more clear than any of the dreams and visions he had before. She touched his chest.

Melinda.

He didn’t feel like himself; but then she touched him, and he felt whole again. Her words stilled the aching in his chest, and the look in her eyes was so tender and heartbreakingly familiar.

Melinda.

The woman he loved.

Then he saw the girl. She was crying and he pulled her to him and wanted nothing more than to make all the hurt and pain go away from her. The missing piece he’d felt since he met her clicked into place.

The family he lost.

Skye.

Izel’s words were confusing him. These weren’t his memories. She wasn’t his love and that wasn’t their daughter. Those memories, those people, belonged to the man they all recognized. The man whose form he’d stolen. He wasn’t this saint they all remembered. He was an imposter; an evil monster in a hero’s body. He was the proverbial wolf in sheeps clothing.

  
He felt broken.

He failed.

She was asking him questions. She seemed so hopeful and for the first time since he met her, he didn’t want to be around her. He wouldn’t admit to recognizing them; recognizing her. Those weren’t even his memories. He had stolen them. He wasn’t the man she was in love with. He had taken that man away from her the way that he thought Izel had taken her from him. She needed to stop hoping. He lashed out at her and slammed his hand on the table. The look on her face made his chest tight, and he swallowed hard. He hated that look, that pain, and he hated being the source of it.

Then he saw the hand print.

His true self was coming out.

The girl was angry and bitter. She was easier to deal with. He would rather see the rage in her eyes than the brokenness in Melinda’s.

She kept pushing and he felt the rage building within him. He needed her to get out before he couldn’t control it anymore.

  
He watched as she flew across the room, and then saw the shock on her face when she landed. He needed her to be afraid of him.

He needed her to stay away.

He needed to get free and far away from them. They wouldn’t be safe when the monster came out, and he wasn’t willing to risk their safety. They weren’t his family, but the need to protect them was still there.

He saw the girl standing in front of him with the sword and realized what needed to be done. He’d rather die than risk either of their lives, and so he stood there begging her.

He realized he slipped up somehow when he saw the moisture build in her eyes and her chin quiver. He heard the sword clatter to the ground, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from hers. She held him tight, and the memory that wasn’t his tore at him.

He couldn’t be who they wanted him to be, but he would be the hero he thought he was.

He would save them.

He couldn’t afford to fail this time.


End file.
